Materials produced for Amnesty International’s global campaign to Stop Violence against Women have made reference to a statement, attributed to the Council of Europe, that “domestic violence is the major cause of death and disability for women aged 16 to 44 and accounts for more death and ill-health than cancer or traffic accidents”. This statement does not accurately reflect the data it refers to. It is therefore withdrawn from existing AI materials to be replaced with the correct statement, featured in bold print below

In a 1994 study using data from a 1993 World Bank modelling exercise, of ten selected causes and risk factors for disability and death among women between the age of 15 and 44, rape and domestic violence rated higher than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria [Lori L. Heise, Jacqueline Pitanguy and Adrienne Germain, 1994, Violence against Women: The Hidden Health Burden (World Bank Discussion Paper 255), World Bank]

The content of the statement used by AI to date can be traced to Council of Europe Recommendation 1582 (27/09/2002) which itself does not include a citation. The statement (or some variation of it) has been used widely worldwide, including by women’s groups, public health organisations, and the US Department of State. It is variously attributed to the World Bank, the World Health Organisation, Amnesty International, and the Council of Europe.

A background study for this Report, undertaken jointly with the World Health Organization, measures the global burden of disease (GBD) by combining (a) losses from premature death, which is defined as the difference between actual age at death and life expectancy at that age in a low-mortality population, and (b) loss of healthy life resulting from disability. The GBD is measured in units of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs). Worldwide, 1.36 billion DALYs were lost in 1990, the equivalent of 42 million deaths of newborn children or of 80 million deaths at age 50. Premature deaths were responsible for 66 percent of all DALYs lost and disabilities for 34 percent.